In this deeply thoughtful, informative, and rewarding book,
Laughlin, a physics Nobel laureate (1998), discusses the emergence
of natural law from organizational/collective principles in nature
and in various phases of matter - as in (among many other and more
exotic examples) the familiar shift from the laws of crystalline
order to those of hydrodynamics and finally to the gas laws, as
ice melts to water and water evaporates to vapor. He is at pains
to point out that most of the phenomena in our daily lives are
produced by the higher-level emergent principles and laws of phase
organization due to the collective action of vast myriads of
atomic constituents whose individual properties count for very
little in the final social milieu - and not just because an
individual atom is only one among many, but because totally
different organizational principles are at work in the different
phases of bulk matter, in contrast to those operating between
small numbers of individual particles: for example, the quantum
behavior of atoms vs the Newtonian behavior of bowling balls.
Laughlin raises the question: which laws are the more fundamental
- the quantum laws of the individual atoms, or the emergent laws
of the collective? Although he identifies this as a semantic
distinction that cannot be definitively answered, as a practical
matter of survival (in biology), he comes down in favor of the
collective.
The work of this web
page in General Systems and the fractal organization
of nature has concerned itself with just such hierarchical
levels of organization (hence Laughlin's book is very much to my
taste), although the language and concepts of phase shifts as used
in the physical sciences has not generally been employed. My
professional training has been mostly in biology where concepts of
hierarchical levels of organization with attendant emergent
phenomena are nothing less than the foundation of the science - from
the cellular structure of all large organisms to the evolutionary
"Tree of Life", and the biochemical underpinnings of metabolism,
reproduction, development, and perception. Unifying the sciences
through a common taxonomy and terminology is a major goal of General
Systems; consequently, I have taken another look at the fractal
organization of the "General Systems" webpage, using the language of
phase shifts and their emergent organizational principles as
suggested by Laughlin's book.
A phase is a self-organizing stable or semi-stable state of
energy/matter/information whose emergent properties are
unique to its level of organization, characteristic of the
collective action of its parts and not of the properties of the
parts themselves. For example, in the biological information
hierarchy that applies to our own human level of organization:
Individual, Family, Society, Species - biochemical metabolism is a
characteristic of the individual; reproduction is a characteristic
of families; civilization is a characteristic of societies; genetic
(Darwinian) evolution is a characteristic of species. Phase
transitions exhibit the emergence of collective laws and behaviors
that are both qualitatively distinct and unpredictable from the laws
and behaviors of lower organizational levels within the collective.
Life is an information phase of matter; our Universe is a
life-friendly anthropic phase of the Multiverse. (See: "The Information Pathway";
"The Information
Ladder"; "The
Fractal Organization of Nature".) Below I list various phases
of matter discussed on this website, with links to relevant papers.
I have grouped the phases according to their origin in a particular
force (as in one of the "four forces of physics"), or according to
their common origin in some other analogous force or agency (as in
biology).
A semantic question arises where to draw the line defining phases.
Clearly, life itself is an information phase of matter. There are
many taxonomic subdivisions of living forms - bacteria, fungi,
plants, animals, dinosaurs, mammals, individual species - etc.
Should we designate any of these as phases in their own right - or
simply leave them as we find them in the biological sciences,
distinct subdivisions within a single overarching life phase?
Similarly, are the different chemical and mineral "species"
different phases of matter - or only distinct subdivisions of
matter's single solid state phase? In order to keep the taxonomy
simple, I will adopt a conservative view and consider all living
forms as members and examples of a single phase of matter - the
information, biological, or life phase of matter. The taxonomic
subdivisions of biology will remain just as they are - recognizable
subdivisions of the main life phase, and similarly for the mineral
and chemical "species" of the abiotic chemical realm - we will treat
them as distinct members and examples of the single solid phase of
matter - sub-phases rather than phases in and of themselves. The
elements of the Periodic Table are likewise seen as distinct
sub-members of the atomic phase of matter (when considered as
single, individual atoms).
1) Force unification transitions, or phase shifts between
primordial symmetric energy states: (A postulated series
or "cascade" of transitions between unified force symmetric energy
states or phases (at very high energy), leading from the "Big Bang"
or "Creation Event" to our ordinary electromagnetic (EM) "ground
state" of matter, as the Universe expands and cools). The four
forces separate from one another sequentially (beginning with
gravity) as the cascade descends to the EM "ground state":
1a) TOE (theory of everything): All forces (including
gravity) unified; fermions unified with bosons. ("Ylem", quark-gluon
"soup") ("Y" IVBs and associated Higgs scalar boson?)
1b) GUT (grand unified theory): Electroweak and strong
forces unified; leptons unified with quarks - "leptoquarks";
fermions unified among themselves, but bosons (including gravity)
separate from fermions. ("X" IVBs and associated Higgs scalar
boson?)
1c) EW (electroweak unification): Leptons unified with other
leptons, and quarks unified with other quarks, but leptons separate
from quarks. W+, W-, Z Intermediate Vector Bosons and associated
Higgs scalar boson.
1d) EM (electromagnetic unification): Ground state of cold,
bound, electromagnetic matter (atoms)); electric and magnetic forces
unified (photons). All forces separate. (See: "Table of the
Higgs Cascade"; "The Higgs Boson and
the Weak Force IVBs".)
2) Weak force phases of matter: including IVBs (W and Z
Intermediate Vector Bosons and their presumed heavier analogs),
Higgs bosons (a hierarchy of several species?), neutrinos (3 or 4
types - neutrinos carry the explicit form of weak force
"identity" charge). Except for the TOE, the unified-force
symmetric energy states are all created by the weak force during the
"Big Bang". All (except the TOE) are asymmetric, temporal, bound
energy (massive) energy states lacking intrinsic motion "c" and
lacking the symmetric complement of antimatter, an asymmetry which
requires them to carry various charges, including gravity. Noether's Theorem
implies that the
charges of matter are symmetry debts of light. (See: "The 'W' IVB and
the Weak Force Mechanism"; "The Higgs Boson and
the Weak Force IVBs"; "Introduction to the
Weak Force".) The weak force is responsible for the asymmetric
creation of matter during the "Big Bang", radioactive and particle
decay, and transformations of identity in single elementary
particles. (See also: "The Origin of Matter
and Information".)
3) Strong force phases of matter: atomic nuclei of the
Periodic Table - protons, neutrons, "nucleons" (superpositions);
quarks (6 "flavors" x 3 "colors"); gluons (8 color x anticolor
combinations). (See: "The
Strong Force: Two expressions".) Until humans discovered
radioactivity and created nuclear bombs and technology, the nuclear
phase of atomic matter operated entirely beneath our notice, buried
deep in the solar interior or beneath the electron shells of atoms.
We knew only sunlight and chemistry. The tremendous primordial
energy of the naked atomic nucleus has proved to be an actual
"Pandora's Box". Hopefully, the same will not become true of DNA,
likewise buried (until recent genetic technology) beneath our notice
deep within the nuclei of cells and gametes. We knew only sex and
the variety of Nature. Apparently we explore below or above the
protective barriers of our native phase at our own considerable
peril. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
4) Electromagnetic phases of matter: The electromagnetic (EM)
ground state of light and cold atomic matter (including the biotic
and abiotic constituents of planet Earth).
The "vacuum" of space is created and gauged by the intrinsic motion
of light as an entropic/energetic conservation domain for free
electromagnetic energy. The Dirac/Heisenberg "vacuum" is the most
symmetric phase of matter, composed of equal parts of matter and
antimatter ("virtual" particles). By its own "intrinsic" (entropic)
motion, light produces space, and "velocity c" (the electromagnetic
constant) acts as the symmetry gauge of space and the
electromagnetic metric of free energy - vanishing mass, charge,
time, and gravity. By Noether's Theorem, this symmetric phase of
energy must be conserved, including the non-local symmetric
attributes of light. The "quality" of light's energy no less than
its quantity must be conserved. This is the fundamental basis of the
Unified Field Theory: The charges of matter are symmetry debts
of light. Space is the entropic and energy-conserving domain
of free electromagnetic energy - produced by the "intrinsic"
(entropic) motion of light acting in its own interest to conserve
and regulate its own energy.
Antimatter, magnetic and electric fields, currents, and related
phenomena, light; chemical elements of the Periodic Table - all may
be considered phases of electromagnetic energy. Matter is an
asymmetric form of bound electromagnetic energy, lacking antimatter,
presumed to have been created during the "Big Bang" via the
asymmetric weak-force decay of electrically neutral leptoquarks.
(See: "The Origin of
Matter and Information".) Common material phases of matter:
solids, liquids, gases. Cold temperature phases include
superconductivity and superfluids. High temperature phases include
plasmas (ionized gas). Life is the most highly complex and organized
(and the only self-interested) information phase of matter
and the EM realm.
The reason the vacuum does not produce a gravitational field is for
the same reason
that light does not - its massless energy is distributed
everywhere simultaneously, that is, perfectly symmetrically. Since
gravity is a symmetry debt recording the asymmetric
spacetime distribution of localized massive immobile forms of bound
electromagnetic energy (particles, atoms, matter, mass), neither
freely moving light nor the symmetric, massless vacuum carries a
gravitational charge or produces a gravitational field. (See: "A Rationale for
Gravity".)
The "metric" of spacetime, as gauged by the universal
electromagnetic constant "c" and modified by the universal
gravitational constant "G" is a scaling property of the "vacuum" as
required by energy conservation. In function, it is analogous to the
Higgs boson which scales the bound energy realm.
4a) Information and biological phases of matter: Life forms,
genetic information coded in molecular DNA/RNA; abstract/symbolic
forms of information invented by brains and especially humans,
including such emergent phenomena as consciousness, language,
creative arts, science, mathematics, communications and information
technology, etc. Mental life (abstracted perception) is an emergent
property of the collective action of massively interconnected
neurons of large brains. In humans (only), creative (imaginary)
mental life can be transformed through language, manual dexterity,
and social organization/technology into material reality. An
automobile or an airplane is an example of an individual's creative
imagination translated to physical reality by the collective action
of human technological society. Biological taxa (individual species
- manifestations or productions of biological (DNA/RNA) information)
are considered as distinct types or examples of the life phase, that
is, as sub-phases of biology, much as the distinct mineral and
molecular species of chemistry are considered as sub-phases of
abiotic matter. Life exists in the narrow temperature band in which
water is in its liquid phase: 0 - 100 degrees centigrade. Because
this temperature is very near the bottom of the absolute temperature
scale, there is an obvious analogy between living processes in the
information realm and superconducting processes in the material
realm. Life - and especially mental life - appears to be some sort
of superconducting liquid crystal of integrated information elements
(DNA, proteins, cells, neurons, etc.).
The death of an individual is equivalent to a phase shift from
physical to spiritual - an abrupt and complete change of
organizational law and principle. The "spirit world" is thus a
postulated phase of the living world, much as the "vacuum"
with its virtual particles is a perfectly symmetric (and hence
unmanifest) phase of the material world. We may also view death as a
phase shift from the specific to the general, that is (for example),
as a retreat from our own specifically realized genetic combination,
to the more generic information content of the human genome from
which we originated. When we die, the genetic information that
created us will still reside in generic form within the living
genome of the human species, and indeed, even within life generally.
There is a parallel retreat (at death) from existence in specific
present time to existence only in generalized historical time. (See:
"The Fractal
Organization of Nature"; see also: "The Human Connection".)
5) Gravitational (astronomical, cosmological) phases of matter:
Planetary (spherical shape); stellar (plasma, nucleosynthetic);
white dwarf (electron shells collapsed into an "electron sea");
neutron star ("electron sea" forced into protons to produce neutrons
and an astronomically-sized atomic nucleus); black hole (4-D
electromagnetic metric collapses into 2-D gravitational metric (the
"event horizon") at g = c, where time completely replaces space. A
black hole is the final or pure phase of temporal entropy for
matter). Cosmological gravitational phases include orbital systems
such as galaxies and solar systems, and the universe at large:
historic spacetime. The universe creates galaxies; galaxies create
stars; stars create heavy elements and planetary systems; planetary
systems create life. Other possible cosmological phases
include "inflation" and the "Multiverse". (See: "Table of the
Higgs Cascade"; "Why There are 3
Spatial Dimensions"; "The Destruction of
Information"; "A Rationale for
Gravity". See also: "A Spacetime Map of
the Universe".)
Humans are in the middle range of a huge hierarchy of
material organizational levels, both biotic and abiotic.
For the most part, like the animals, we are largely or completely
unaware of the activity occurring within the levels either above or
below us, and we can do little or nothing to effect, change, or
control them. (This is where religion and the gods are invoked for
help.) We don't know (or need to know) how we digest our food, nor
how our body grows and develops. And we are largely unaware of these
processes as they take place - they just happen. There is a huge
range of biochemical processes from the cell on up to our complete
organism that goes on without our knowledge or awareness, including,
among other functions, the distribution of energy and oxygen
throughout our body for the maintenance of our life processes. Other
than the sex act itself, the whole process of reproduction, growth,
and development goes on whether we understand it or not, including
the mysterious mechanism of inheritance. The entire hierarchy of
biochemistry, cells, organs, tissues, etc., is itself founded upon
an abiotic hierarchy of molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, and
quantum mechanical processes of which we are even less aware. Not
only am I a huge collection and hierarchy of correlated biochemical
processes, organelles, symbionts, cells, specialized organs and
tissues, but it even turns out that I am a huge collection of
microbial species; there are more cells of other species (mostly
beneficial and necessary) within me than there are of my own.
Nor is the situation any better concerning the organizational levels
above humans. Processes such as evolution and the bio-geo-chemical
cycles of the earth proceed without our knowledge. Weather and
climate are beyond our control; likewise glacial periods, plate
tectonics, mountain building, vulcanism, and earthquakes. The solar
system rolls on without our permission, and until recently, without
our understanding; meteors and comets bombard the earth; the earth's
magnetic field protects us from the sun's local outbursts, but it
cannot protect us from the life cycle of our dying star, nor the
eventual and inevitable collision between our galaxy and our giant
neighbor Andromeda. The great Milky Way galaxy of which we are a
part was entirely unknown only a century ago, much less its function
in the production of heavy elements, stars, and their planetary
systems. The list of our blissful ignorance can be extended both up
and down the hierarchy, and in fact we don't know how far it extends
in either direction or what it includes (the Multiverse? Strings?
Heaven? Hell? A Realm of Natural Law and abstract Ideal Forms?
Spiritual dimensions?).
We can, like the animals, live comfortably within our own biological
level of organization without ever giving a thought to the
functioning of all those complex levels both above and below us,
both within and without, biotic and abiotic, material or abstract,
physical or spiritual, earthly or cosmic, even though all are
necessary for our survival and the coordinated functioning and
conservation of the universe as a whole. The
social/political/legal/economic functioning of our own collective
organizational level (society/civilization) is only barely within
our grasp. Nevertheless, it is the unique destiny of humanity to be
the "eyes and ears" of the universe. The universe comes to
understand itself and continue its growth through life and curious
intelligent beings like ourselves; we are the self-awareness of the
universe. It is the human role to probe the organizational
structures both above and below our own with our space programs and
atom smashers, telescopes and microscopes, mathematics and
technology, to understand them and see how we fit into the Great
Collective of the Cosmos, both its material hierarchies and its
temporal cycles, its evolution, and even its purposes.
When we look up at the stars at night, we see directly into
the grander organizational structures of our Cosmos (solar
system/galaxy/universe), far above our biological phase both
literally and figuratively, which we are only just beginning to
understand. The cold glitter of the stars and the vastness of the
night sky can be frightening as well as magnificent and intriguing.
We should remember that our own life-giving Sun is a normal member
of this awesome assembly, and so affords us a friendly entrance and
introduction into its mysteries.
Our own level of organization within the biotic or life phase of
matter is the "Species"
level. This level is itself divided into four sections of
collective organizational complexity: 1) the Individual (or
metabolic) level; 2) the Family (or reproductive) level; 3) the
Social (or political/legal/civil) level; 4) the Species (or
evolutionary) level. One of the astonishing aspects of the
individual level is the discovery that we are not even a complete
organism, and that our gender opposite is running around as another
free individual, who must be scouted out and acquired, generally
through some kind of courtship, trial, test, contract, or even
purchase. We must prove ourselves worthy to reproduce. Marriage is a
preliminary step toward the complex legal structure of society, the
next organizational level above the family. In most respects society
exists to safeguard the vital reproductive function of the family.
At the social level of civilization, we also find the emergent
phenomena of technology, the sciences, the arts, religion, as well
as legal and political structures, including the military,
legislative bodies, a constitution, national boundaries, etc. The
final "Species" organizational level (defined as the closed genome
of humanity) exists in evolutionary time, may have no particular
geographic boundary, is responsible for gender divisions of the
individual and family levels, and has its own agenda, as Darwin
pointed out ("survival of the fittest"), and as we are still
discovering ("the selfish gene", "group selection", "epigenetics",
etc.).
Each species must find its own unique niche, its particular way of
"making a living" (surviving) in the world among myriad other
species, who are all trying their best to do the same. The human
niche has evolved from a small, local group of anthropoid social,
bipedal, intelligent hunter-gatherers with language and fire, using
hand-crafted and hand-held tools, to an enormously populous,
world-wide species of many social groupings, languages, and
nationalities, whose principle and unique niche is that of the social
apprehension and application of natural law, including
agriculture, medicine, science, and all modern technology. In a
stunning demonstration of the fractal organization of nature, we
have even appropriated the evolutionary genetic mechanism, laid
hands upon the atomic nucleus, duplicated the solar process of
element-making, and are now beginning our journey into the galaxy
which spawned us.
Links:
email:
jag8@cornell.edu
johngowan@earthlink.net
General Systems and Metaphysics
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